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020118Z Mar 05

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 14 CANBERRA 000386
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED
DEPT FOR G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, PRM, IWI, EAP/RSP, AND
EAP/ANP
DEPT ALSO PASS TO USAID
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KCRMPHUMKWMNSMIGELABPREFKFRDASECAS
SUBJECT: AUSTRALIA'S FIFTH ANNUAL ANTI-TRAFFICKING IN
PERSONS (TIP) REPORT
REF: A) 04 STATE 273089; B) 04 CANBERRA 702
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Australia remains a destination country for
Southeast Asian women trafficked for prostitution. Many of these
women travel to Australia voluntarily to work in both legal and
illegal brothels but can be deceived or coerced into debt bondage
or sexual servitude.
The Government of Australia fully complies with the minimum
standards for the elimination of trafficking. Its Commonwealth
Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons, launched in
October 2003, provides substantial financial and personnel
resources to combat the problem both domestically and
internationally. The development of further legislation meant to
comprehensively criminalize aspects of trafficking, increase
prosecutions, and enhance victim assistance was among the many
positive steps taken by the Australian Government in 2004.
Prosecution
The Government prosecutes trafficking offenses under various
statutes including provisions in the Commonwealth Criminal Code,
the Federal Crimes Act, and the Migration Act. In the twelve
months to December 31, 2004, the Australian Federal Police (AFP)
received 44 referrals from government and non-government sources;
38 of these cases were accepted for investigation during the year,
while three were later rejected and one was terminated. As of
January 31, there were 14 suspected traffickers being tried in
five cases involving 24 alleged trafficking victims. The
Australian Federal Police's 23-member Transnational Sexual
Exploitation and Trafficking (TSET) rapid-response team is charged
with making the initial assessment of whether a person is a
trafficking victim. The TSET is specifically dedicated to
investigating cases throughout the country. The AFP uses
electronic surveillance, undercover operations, plea-bargaining
and other enforcement techniques to investigate traffickers.
In March 2005, the Parliament is expected to pass a new anti-
trafficking law, which will comprehensively outlaw trafficking
offenses and enable Australia to ratify later this year the UN
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons
(SEPTEL by April 1).
Under Australian law it is an offense for Australian citizens and
residents to travel abroad to engage in sex with minors less than
16 years of age. Since its adoption in 1994, 13 persons have been
convicted under this law, which carries a maximum sentence of 17
years. Penalties for other trafficking offenses are as high as 20
to 25 years.
Protection
The Government took significant steps in 2004 to improve efforts
by police and immigration authorities to distinguish trafficking
victims from illegal migrants and to provide prompt assistance to
those victims, including counseling and temporary shelter. The
Australian Government made determined efforts to identify and
elicit the cooperation of trafficking victims in providing
criminal evidence for the prosecution of traffickers. The
Government's streamlined police investigation and immigration
referral procedures have seen immigration authorities dramatically
increase the number of suspected trafficking victims it refers to
the AFP for trafficking assessment and visa determinations.
Immigration authorities have granted 29 bridging visas to
trafficked victims. Such cooperating victims are eligible for
social security benefits, housing, medical checkups and treatment,
legal assistance, social support and vocational training.
Prevention
The Government of Australia in 2004 continued to expand its
efforts to prevent new incidents of trafficking, largely through
closer coordination with neighboring countries to prevent and
investigate trafficking. During 2004 Australia increased its aid
commitment to the International Organization of Migration (IOM) to
help finance a project for the return and reintegration of
trafficked and other vulnerable persons in the region. The
Government also funded awareness campaigns in source countries, in
addition to programs designed to sensitize the tourism industry to
the child sex tourism problem. Australia has worked to raise the
profile of trafficking issues in the region through its leadership
role in the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in
Persons, and Related Transnational Crime. Within Australia, the
Government started an awareness campaign targeting the sex
industry and the community at large; it also widely publicizes
criminal cases against traffickers. Australia sought the
cooperation of foreign governments in the local prosecution of
Australian pedophiles or their extradition or deportation to
Australia to face justice for the extra-territorial offense of
sexual exploitation of a minor.
The Australian Government has continued to demonstrate regional
leadership in combating trafficking in persons. It has provided
foreign aid to strengthen the capacity of regional police forces
to investigate trafficking cases, supported legal education
programs to assist regional lawmakers in improving their capacity
to prosecute traffickers, and funded reintegration programs for
trafficked women. Australia also promoted awareness of the
region's TIP problem by co-hosting with Indonesia the regional
Bali conference. END SUMMARY.
¶2. (U) Per reftel, Para 5 begins Mission Australia's submission to
the fourth annual Anti-Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report.
¶3. (U) Embassy's point of contact on TIP issues is Labor
Specialist Justin McEvoy, Ph: 61-2-6214-5865, Fax: 61-2-6214-5936,
E-Mail: Mcevoyjp@state.gov. FSO point of contact is Brett Mattei,
Ph: 61-2-6214-5883, Fax: 61-2-6214-5816, E-Mail:
MatteiBD@state.gov.
¶4. (U) Per reftel request, Mission Australia has spent a total of
419 work hours researching trafficking issues and meeting with
trafficking contacts over the past year in preparation for this
TIP report. This total includes the following hours:
20 hours at the MC level
5 hours at the OC level
40 hours spent by one officer at the 01 level
96 hours spent by one officer at the 02 level
20 hours spent by one officer at the 04 level
and 240 hours spent by one FSN at the FSN-11 level
¶5. (SBU) PART 1: OVERVIEW
Australia remains a destination country for an indeterminate
number of women, overwhelmingly from Thailand, trafficked for
sexual servitude.
Estimates of Australia's trafficking problem continue to vary
considerably, ranging from 20 to over 1,000 sex trafficking
victims per year. Government officials insist that the size of
Australia's trafficking problem (incorporating cases of slavery,
sexual servitude, and deceptive recruiting to sexual servitude)
continues to fall well below the TIP report's threshold of 100
cases. After 34 full investigations, the Australian Federal
Police (AFP) determined that there were 20 trafficking victims
during 2004. Over the same period, the Department of Immigration
and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) referred 99
persons to the AFP for evaluation as suspected trafficking victims
and subsequently issued 29 visas to women after the police secured
the women's agreement to assist with prosecutions. As of January
31, 2005 the government was prosecuting 14 traffickers in five
court cases involving 24 alleged trafficking victims. In 2003,
the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) undertook a criminal
intelligence assessment of slavery and sexual servitude cases in
Australia from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003 (Ref B); of the five
methods it used to estimate the scope of the problem, it found
that the annual number of victims may be "as high as nearly 180"
after accounting for underreporting.
During 2004, the local anti-trafficking NGO Project Respect (PR)
again stated that 1,000 trafficked victims are brought to
Australia each year; however, this estimate is unreliable and
uncorroborated, and it was not derived via a social science
methodology. [PR's methodology is discussed in detail below.]
The 2003-04 parliamentary inquiry into the Government's response
to sex trafficking was unable to settle on the scope of the
problem; however, it determined that a "relatively small" number
among an estimated 300 foreign women who travel to Australia for
legal and illegal sex work each year were subjected to sexual
servitude.
Local NGO Child Wise, formerly End Child Prostitution and
Trafficking Australia, reported no cases of foreign children being
trafficked to Australia or child prostitutes being transported
across state borders in 2004. Child Wise alleged an increase in
the pimp-controlled prostitution of Australians less than 18 years
of age, but would not offer an estimate on the scope of the
problem. In November, a former New South Wales (NSW) brothel
owner was sentenced to four years imprisonment for employing two
Australian girls, aged 13 and 14.
Australia's umbrella labor organization, the Australian Council of
Trade Unions (ACTU), actively monitors suspected labor trafficking
cases through their national network of affiliated unions. The
ACTU reported no cases of labor exploitation akin to trafficking.
While trafficked women come overwhelmingly from Thailand,
Australian authorities have located suspected trafficking victims
from the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, China,
Hong Kong SAR, South Korea, Burma, the Congo, Sierra Leone,
Colombia, and Uzbekistan. Twenty-three of the 29 bridging visas
DIMIA granted in 2004 went to Thai women. Post found no evidence
of persons being trafficked from Australia.
Authorities believe that Australian trafficking networks are
primarily composed of individual operators or opportunistic crime
groups that take advantage of existing organized crime structures
overseas to procure fraudulent but high-quality travel documents
for the women.
An NGO promoting sexual health, including among prostitutes,
reported that increased immigration compliance raids of brothels
since 2002 had reduced the number of foreign contract sex workers,
the group considered most at risk of being trafficked; however,
post could not substantiate this claim. The NGO also reported
that the debt holders had loosened the restrictions the women
faced, but had increased the contract debt. The AFP and the
government-contracted Victims of Trafficking Care (VOTCare)
program manager, Southern Edge Training (SET), independently
confirmed these claims. The AFP reported that the women were now
encumbered with a larger debt averaging $46,800 (A60,000). SET
reported that the women were now receiving a partial payment for
their work, rather than not receiving any payment before the
"contract debt" was paid off.
According to SET, the women were required to perform approximately
14 client services per day, equivalent to 7 hours work, and
complained about the pressure they felt having to accept clients
that they did not want to service. However, evidence contained in
Project Respect's March 2004 report into sex trafficking in
Australia cited cases where an alleged trafficked victim saw as
few as two clients per day. SET also reported that generally
other people still "looked after" the women's passports, while the
sexual health promotion NGO said that the confiscation of
passports had become less prevalent. The AFP reported that
Thailand continued to be the primary source country of the foreign
sex workers on debt contracts; however, they had found increasing
numbers of South Korean women in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane's
karaoke clubs and massage parlors, and that the Korean women were
less willing to talk about their experiences. The AFP further
reported that Korean and Thai women faced different debt
contracts, because many Korean women could more easily enter and
work in Australia while criminal organizations were required to
facilitate the entry of most Thai women. NGO Project Respect
reported an increase in South Korean women, some of whom the NGO
believed were entering Australia on student visas which allowed
the visa holder to work lawfully for up to 20 hours per week.
For many years, the domestic anti-trafficking NGO Project Respect
has claimed that 1,000 victims are trafficked to Australia for
prostitution each year. The NGO came to this estimate by
multiplying DIMIA's count of prostitutes expelled from Australia
for immigration violations in a given year by 10. In March 2004,
PR released their report "One Victim of Trafficking is One Too
Many: Counting the Human Cost of Trafficking," which was prepared
with the assistance of the U.S.-based Shared Hope International.
The PR report presented information on some 280 suspected
trafficking victims collected over five years (on average, 57
victims per year). The report cited 58 specific cases (some
involving multiple victims), but many of these cases were gleaned
from second and third hand reporting. PR's report contained
several weaknesses, including the failure to define a trafficked
victim and to ensure that cases were not double-counted. SET,
which has over five years experience training female prostitutes
and prisoners in other forms of employment, dismissed PR's
estimate of the problem as "unbelievable" and over 10 times higher
than their data set would support.
In 2003, the ACC together with other federal agencies compiled a
classified criminological assessment on the nature and future of
trafficking in persons to Australia for sexual exploitation. The
ACC's classified report was not released publicly; however, post
received a close-hold (non-releasable SBU-equivalent) copy of the
report's executive summary in April 2004 (Ref B). The
Commission's research identified 37 sexual servitude cases between
July 2002 and June 2003, and estimated that the annual number of
victims "may be as high as nearly 180" after accounting for
underreporting.
In June 2004, a federal parliamentary committee issued a report on
its year-long inquiry into the national criminal intelligence
agency's response to sex trafficking and the adequacy of federal
anti-trafficking laws. The report recommended that the Government
broaden the criminal code to include non-sexual forms of
compulsory labor in the definition of trafficking and hasten its
ratification of the U.N.'s trafficking protocol. The report noted
wide variations in NGO estimates of the number of trafficked
women; while it was unable to provide definitive numbers, the
report estimated that a "relatively small" number among an
estimated 300 women who travel to the country for work in the sex
industry each year were subjected to sexual servitude. In
response to the report, the Government restated its commitment to
eradicate sex trafficking and take action on the report's
recommendations.
Limited, mostly anecdotal evidence is available about the end-
point working conditions for "contract sex workers" in Australia
and the degree to which they are subjected to involuntary
servitude. NGO reports continue to generally substantiate
Brockett and Murray's 1994 assessment of contract sex workers
working conditions. Their report noted: "Once in Sydney, the
women might not make as much money as they expected, and may
become entangled in further debts and extortion so that they have
to keep working. Occasionally, women are physically forced to
keep working and have little freedom to move beyond the parlour
setting on their own; or they are moved from parlour to parlour to
maximise profitability. When tickets and passports with visas are
taken away they have no bargaining power."
In 1996, DIMIA published its "Report into the Trafficking of Women
into Australian Sex Industry," which recorded allegations of
restrictions on liberty for undocumented workers in the sex
industry and pressures on them to accept demands from clients to
engage in unsafe sexual practices. It noted that brothel owners
often held their passports as security for the debt, and contract
workers were unable to freely access or control the money they
earned until they departed Australia at the end of their
contracts. However, a Sydney-based NGO promoting sexual health
told us in 2002 that these reports exaggerated the extent of
coercive behavior in the industry. The NGO employs two bilingual
outreach workers with sex work experience who visit brothels
regularly to educate sex workers about sexual health and legal
issues. The NGO's director acknowledged that some women might
have to work specific hours or perform a certain number of acts
per week. She said that some women might also be required to have
"minders" when they go on an outing or shopping. The NGO claimed
that the women readily make themselves available outside normal
working hours because the more they work, the faster their debt is
reduced and the sooner they start earning money for themselves.
During the past five years, the NGO had encountered ten women who
complained about their treatment and sought assistance to exit
their contracts.
The Australian Government's October 2003 announcement of a $15
million (A20 million) Commonwealth Action Plan to Eradicate
Trafficking in Persons, with contributions from five GOA
ministries, demonstrated the considerable political support that
exists in Australia to combat trafficking in persons. In addition
to this financial commitment, spread over four years, the GOA has
undertaken other measures to eradicate trafficking in persons for
sexual servitude.
Prevention
As a destination country for smuggled and trafficked people,
Australia has taken on a regional leadership role to eradicate the
smuggling and trafficking of persons. The Australian government
continued to fund awareness campaigns in source countries, as well
as programs designed to sensitize the tourism industry to the
child sex tourism problem. It has also worked to raise the
profile of trafficking issues in the region through its leadership
role in the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in
Persons, and Related Transnational Crime. During 2004, Australia
increased its aid commitment to the International Organization of
Migration to help finance a project for the return and
reintegration of trafficked and other vulnerable women and
children in the region, and continued its overseas aid commitment
to the Asian Regional Initiative Against Trafficking in Women and
Children in the Mekong delta region. Within Australia, the
government initiated an awareness campaign targeting the sex
industry and the community at large; it also widely publicized
criminal cases against traffickers. Australia sought the
cooperation of foreign governments in the local prosecution of
Australian pedophiles or their extradition or deportation to
Australia so they could be tried for the extra-territorial offense
of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Prosecution
The Government prosecutes trafficking offenses under various
statutes, including provisions in the Commonwealth Criminal Code,
the Federal Crimes Act, and the Migration Act. In the twelve
months to December 31, 2004, the Australian Federal Police (AFP)
received 44 referrals from government and non-government sources;
38 of these cases were accepted for investigation during the year,
while three were later rejected and one was terminated. As of
January 31, there were 14 suspected traffickers facing justice in
five cases involving 24 alleged trafficking victims. The
Australian Federal Police's 23-member Transnational Sexual
Exploitation and Trafficking (TSET) rapid-response team is charged
with making the initial assessment of whether a person is a
trafficking victim. The TSET is specifically dedicated to
investigating cases throughout the country. The AFP uses
electronic surveillance, undercover operations, plea-bargaining
and other enforcement techniques to investigate traffickers.
In 2004, sexual servitude, slavery, people smuggling, and child
sex tourism crimes were included as serious offenses in the
Federal Proceeds of Crime Act of 2002, which allows for the
forfeiture of assets of those found guilty.
Protection
The Australian Government took significant steps in 2004 to
improve efforts by police and immigration authorities to
distinguish trafficking victims from illegal migrants and provide
prompt assistance to those victims, including counseling and
temporary shelter. The Government made determined efforts to
identify and elicit the cooperation of trafficking victims in
providing criminal evidence for the prosecution of traffickers.
The Australian Government's streamlined police investigation and
immigration referral procedures have seen immigration authorities
dramatically increase the number of suspected trafficking victims
it refers to the AFP for trafficking assessment and visa
determinations. Immigration authorities have granted 29 bridging
visas to trafficked victims. Cooperative victims are eligible for
social security benefits, housing, medical checkups and treatment,
legal assistance, social support and vocational training.
There were no reports of federal or state officials who condone or
were complicit in trafficking in persons in Australia.
There were no limitations on the Government's ability to address
Australia's trafficking problem.
The Inter-departmental Committee (IDC) established by the
Government to develop the $15 million (A20 million) Commonwealth
Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons continued to
monitor its implementation and report on its achievements directly
to the Government. To date, the AFP and the Minister for Justice
and Customs have publicized the arrests of ten people for sexual
servitude offenses. Each of the five ministers involved in the
plan's development has publicized achievements in his or her areas
of responsibility. In addition, Australia's well-respected anti-
trafficking NGOs, an aggressive free press, and active domestic
human rights organizations have ensured that the plan's
accomplishments and shortcomings are subjected to public scrutiny.
The Government has promoted its regional anti-trafficking and anti-
smuggling efforts through its co-hosting of the yearly Regional
Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons, and
Related Transnational Crime, also known as the "Bali Conference."
The six state and two territory governments regulate prostitution.
The states and territories have adopted a range of approaches to
the regulation of prostitution, including full prohibition,
criminalization, decriminalization, and partial legalization. The
State of South Australia comprehensively criminalizes
prostitution, including the act of prostitution. Both Tasmanian
and Western Australian (WA) law criminalizes activities
surrounding prostitution; however, since 1975, the WA sex industry
has operated with informal police acceptance underpinned by an
unwritten containment policy. Australia's most populous state,
New South Wales, decriminalized prostitution, effectively
transferring regulatory control of brothels and street
prostitution to local planning authorities, in 1995. The
remaining states and territories - Victoria, Queensland, the
Northern Territory (NT), and the Australian Capital Territory
(ACT) - have all adopted various forms of partial legalization,
which regulate some form of commercial business. Victoria,
Queensland and the ACT license brothels; the NT licenses escort
agencies. Apart from South Australia, women who engage in
prostitution are generally not subjected to criminal penalty.
Across all jurisdictions, the legal minimum age of a prostitute is
18 years old.
There were no reports of the practice of buying or selling child
brides during the year.
¶6. (SBU) PART 2: PREVENTION
The Government has acknowledged that people trafficking occurs in
Australia, although it believes that the scope of the problem is
small. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed the
existence of 20 trafficking victims in 2004.
The principal government agencies involved in Australia's anti-
trafficking and victim support efforts are the Departments of the
Attorney General, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Immigration and
Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, Family and Community
Services, and Justice and Customs. The Attorney General's
Department oversees the Government's interdepartmental committee
on people trafficking. Australia continued to demonstrate
regional leadership in fighting people trafficking by co-
sponsoring, with Indonesia, regional activities under the auspices
of the annual "Bali Conference." Immigration officials identify
suspected trafficking victims in many industries through regular
compliance and document checks of foreign workers in businesses
susceptible to harboring trafficking victims. The Government's
specialist anti-trafficking unit, the AFP's TSET team, deploys a
rapid response unit to situations where trafficking is suspected.
TSET, rather than DIMIA immigration compliance officers, is
SIPDIS
responsible for determining whether a person is a trafficking
victim.
Several other government agencies are involved in Australia's
coordinated campaign to eradicate people trafficking. The AFP and
the Director of Public Prosecutions, partner agencies of the
Justice and Customs Department, cooperate on trafficking
investigations and prosecutions. The Foreign Affairs Department's
partner agency, the Australian Agency for International
Development (AusAID), works with South-East Asian partners to
combat trafficking and child sex tourism and funds several aid
programs that promote regional cooperation to combat trafficking.
The Australian Crime Commission is responsible for the collection
and analysis of future trends in crime, including organized crime
in Australia. The Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis
Center (AUSTRAC) investigates monetary flows from Australia's sex
industry.
The Government set aside $460,000 (A630,000) for a multi-year
community awareness project about trafficking. The project has
two separate programs: the first targets awareness of sex
trafficking among workers in the legal sex industry, while the
second focuses on improving community awareness of the problem.
The goals of both campaigns are to help identify suspected victims
and traffickers and to improve reporting to the relevant
authorities for further investigation. The project also raises
awareness about the range of victim support measures to encourage
victims themselves to come forward. The project was carefully
designed in close consultation with the sex industry, outreach and
advocacy organizations, service providers and professionals in the
community health and welfare sector, and the media. The strategy
comprises four stages over four years at a total cost of $0.4
million from the Government's overall $20 million package of anti-
trafficking initiatives announced in 2003. The tender process for
stage one (exploratory and developmental research) is now under
way. The successful tenderer will be assisted by a specialist
project advisory group and will be required to directly consult
and liaise closely with key non-government organizations.
Separately, immigration officials and the NGO Project Respect
distributed information brochures, which were jointly drafted, to
brothels, informing women about their rights, as well as the
resources available to victims of trafficking. The brochures were
written in Indonesian, Chinese, and Thai, as well as English.
The Australian Government funds trafficking prevention programs in
source countries through its overseas aid agency, AusAID.
Australia's principal anti-trafficking project is the three-year
$6.2 million (A8.5 million) Asian Regional Cooperation to Prevent
People Trafficking project, which has established specialist anti-
trafficking law enforcement units and developed prosecutorial
capabilities in Thailand, Laos, Burma and Cambodia. AusAID has
also funded the domestic NGO Child Wise (formerly End Child
Prostitution in Asian Tourism) with a US$276,000 grant to educate
Southeast Asian tourism industry staff about protecting children
from sexual exploitation.
The Government's national action plan on trafficking consulted
widely with many of the same NGOs and academics who wrote
submissions to the Parliamentary inquiry into Australia's handling
of women trafficked into Sexual Servitude (the complete list of
parties can be found at
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/acc_ct te/completed_inquirie
s/2002-04/sexual_servitude/submissions/sublis t.htm.) All elements
of Australia's civil society have shown a strong interest in
trafficking issues, particularly sex trafficking. The GOA
responds promptly to and investigates effectively any reports of
trafficking from the country's aggressive and independent media
and NGOs.
Australia's border control agencies, DIMIA and the Australian
Customs Service (ACS), have one of the world's most advanced
border monitoring information systems, which tracks both ingoing
and outgoing passenger movements. Officials check the bona fides
of all passengers entering Australia to detect illegal entrants
and trafficked or smuggled persons. Immigration officials monitor
the number of in-country requests for asylum, and inspect legal
and suspected illegal brothels regularly to identify suspected
trafficking victims and their countries of origin as well as
evidence of visa malfeasance. If immigration officials detect any
grounds for suspicion that a person may have been trafficked, they
are obliged to refer the suspected victim immediately to the AFP.
Law enforcement agencies respond rapidly to evidence of
trafficking; the AFP's 23-member TSET Team is available to DIMIA
at short notice to assess evidence that may point to a suspected
trafficking victim. The Government also conducts outreach
programs to many of its regional neighbors to enhance border
security, through the AFP's law enforcement development program
and immigration cooperation.
Australia has taken a whole-of-government approach to eradicating
trafficking in persons. In 2003, the Australian Government
established an interdepartmental committee to develop the
Government's Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons, and
this committee continues to coordinate the government's anti-
trafficking efforts. Police and government agencies have
effective internal affairs units or inspectors general who
investigate reports of improper behavior or malfeasance.
Australia leads regional efforts to prevent, monitor, and control
anti-trafficking efforts through its sponsorship and co-chairing
of the Regional Ministerial Conference on People Smuggling,
Trafficking in Persons and Transnational Crime, also known as the
"Bali Conference."
In 2003, the GOA launched its four-year $15 million (A$20 million)
Government's Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons for
Sexual Exploitation (see
http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/www/Agdhome.nsf/Page /RWPA835B403668897F6C
A256EB0000F7264?OpenDocument.) The plan has already significantly
enhanced the detection, investigation, and prosecution of
traffickers, and improved support services to victims.
Australia's Ambassador for People Smuggling Issues within DFAT is
responsible for promoting effective, practical international
cooperation to combat trafficking in persons, particularly in the
Asia-Pacific region.
¶7. (SBU) PART 3: PROSECUTION
Australia's laws adequately cover the full scope of trafficking
offences. The Federal Government's primary anti-trafficking law
is the Slavery and Sexual Servitude Act of 1999. It amended the
Commonwealth Criminal Code to criminalize slavery, sexual
servitude (including exercising control or direction over, or
providing finance for, any act of slavery,) and deceptive
recruiting for sexual services. In 2002, the Government
specifically criminalized the smuggling of a person into Australia
with the intention of subjecting the smuggled person to sexual
servitude, slavery, or forced labor. The Government unveiled a
new trafficking bill in mid-2004, which followed from the review
it announced as part of the national action plan. The new bill
would create many new offences, including where the trafficker
transports a victim using force, threats or deception (proposed
maximum penalty: 12 years imprisonment), trafficking in children
(proposed maximum penalty: 20 years imprisonment), domestic
trafficking to ensure that every person in the chain of
exploitation can be prosecuted for participating (proposed maximum
penalty: 12 years imprisonment), and exploitative employment
contracts or debt bondage (proposed maximum penalty: 12 years
imprisonment). Parliament is expected to enact the new law in
March 2005.
State and territory laws govern domestic crimes, such as internal
trafficking. The AFP reported that state anti-trafficking laws
complement the Federal law. Four of Australia's six states and
two territories -- New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia,
Western Australia (2004), the Northern Territory, and the
Australian Capital Territory -- have laws that specifically
criminalize sexual servitude. The other three states (Tasmania
and Queensland) could prosecute internal trafficking cases under
other laws covering unlawful confinement and compelling a person
to engage in sexual behavior, or under Federal anti-trafficking
laws by reference.
Penalties for people trafficking are severe. Under Federal law,
slavery carries a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment,
sexual servitude attracts a maximum penalty of 15 years'
imprisonment (19 years' imprisonment in the case of persons under
18 years), and deceptive recruitment for sexual services carries a
maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment (9 years'
imprisonment in the case of persons under 18 years). People
smuggling for the purposes of exploitation carries a maximum
penalty of 20 years' imprisonment under Federal law.
The maximum penalty for trafficking offenses is higher than the
separate state and territory laws covering rape and sexual
assault. Rape (or crimes corresponding to the common law offense
of rape) carry penalties ranging from 12 years to life under
separate laws of Australian states and territories. Sexual
assault offenses carry penalties ranging from 7 to 21 years
imprisonment. Slavery and sexual servitude offenses are all
characterized by the Federal Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 as serious
offenses for which persons convicted can be required to forfeit
all their property.
During the 2004 calendar year, the AFP received 44 referrals from
government and non-government sources; 38 of these cases were
accepted for investigation, while three were later rejected and
one was terminated. As of January 31 2005, 14 persons were facing
prosecution in five separate cases involving 24 alleged
trafficking victims. The courts had not yet issued any sentences.
Australian authorities believe that trafficking networks are
primarily composed of individual operators, or opportunistic crime
groups that often rely on organized crime to procure fraudulent,
but high-quality travel documents for trafficked persons.
Researchers and NGO sources indicate that profits from the work of
foreign contract prostitutes, some of whom may be trafficked, are
split among a network of brokers who bring the contract sex
workers to Australia, and the owners of brothels where they work.
The same sources say that once a foreign contract sex worker has
paid her debt, she generally gets to keep 60 percent of the
subsequent revenue from her work until her contract period is
finished, which is the revenue less the cost of food and lodgings.
Government law enforcement agents actively investigate cases of
suspected trafficking. AFP officers use all law enforcement
techniques at their disposal to combat trafficking, including
electronic surveillance and telecommunication interception,
undercover operations, and mitigated punishment or immunity for
cooperating suspects.
The AFP has trained twenty-five special TSET investigators in
interviewing suspected trafficking victims. DIMIA's compliance
officer training program ensures that its enforcement agents
identify possible signs of trafficking and automatically refer
possible trafficking cases to the AFP TSET team for evaluation.
Federal and state agencies involved in immigration matters are
specially trained to recognize trafficking and elicit information
from witnesses or illegal immigrants that might point to
trafficking cases. DIMIA has posted a Senior Compliance Officer
in Thailand (under the government's national action plan) to work
with local officials and NGOs on joint investigations of
traffickers and trafficking syndicates. Immigration officials at
posts and special Airport Liaison Officers (ALOs) are trained to
spot potential trafficking victims when they apply for visas or
transit through international airports. They also serve as
primary contacts on immigration-related matters with foreign
immigration and law enforcement agencies, foreign NGOs, and aid
organizations. The NGO Child Wise (formerly ECPAT), with
government sponsorship, has developed posters and training
programs for consular and immigration officers that emphasize
indicators of child trafficking.
The Federal Government has worked closely with its regional
neighbors to prevent and investigate both people smuggling and
trafficking. These cooperative efforts include funding overseas
immigration and police liaison officers, training foreign police
in investigative techniques, and facilitating regional conferences
to coordinates measures against people trafficking.
Australia has bilateral extradition treaties with many countries
that would enable it to extradite persons, including its own
nationals, who have been charged with trafficking offences in
other countries.
The Government, at all levels, has zero tolerance for any
involvement in or support for trafficking in persons or people
smuggling. Post unearthed no indications that any government
officials were involved in trafficking on a local or institutional
level.
In 1994 Australia enacted the Child Sex Tourism Act, which made it
an offense for Australian citizens and residents who travel
overseas to engage in sexual activity with children under the age
of 16 years. It provides for a maximum sentence of 17 years'
imprisonment upon conviction. Since 1994, 19 persons have been
charged under the act; as of December 10, there were 13
convictions, 3 dismissals, and 3 ongoing cases.
Although Australia has not yet ratified ILO Convention 182 on the
Elimination Of The Worst Forms Of Child Labor, it complies with
ILO 182 in practice and has declared its intention to ratify the
treaty after its states amend their laws to bring them into
compliance. Australia has ratified ILO Conventions 29 and 105.
Australia signed, but has yet to ratify, both the Optional
Protocol to the child rights Convention on the Sale of Children,
Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography, and the Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
¶8. (SBU) PART 4: PROTECTION
Australia provides a comprehensive trafficking victim protection
package that includes relief from deportation, a special
trafficking victim visa regime, and a tailored social services
case management program. The Government's Victims of Trafficking
Care (VOTCare) program has assisted 37 people since mid-2004. In
February 2005, 22 women were receiving program assistance.
The Government's VOTCare package comprises two phases:
Phase 1 extends for a maximum of 30 days and is triggered after
the person has been assessed as being a victim or a suspected
victim of trafficking offenses and of interest to the police for
the investigation or prosecution of a trafficking offense. The
suspected victim is given a 30-day visa (the Bridging Visa, Type
"F"), which, once granted, entitles them to access the victim
support program. The victim assistance package provides a
flexible and tailored package of benefits through individual case
management. The benefits include immediate medical and
pharmaceutical treatment and counseling, private short-term hotel
accommodation and an ongoing food and living allowance, access to
English language training, and up to three appointments with a
legal practitioner.
Inclusion in the second phase of the program depends on whether
the AFP has established that the victim can and will assist in the
prosecution of traffickers. At that stage, the police ask DIMIA
to grant the victim a Criminal Justice Stay visa and a different
range of support measures come into effect. As such, the victim
support package is driven by the visa regime. The victim can
access a special government payment (approximately $10,000
(A12,600) per year including rent assistance, which is set at the
same level as the government-funded unemployment benefit), and
continue to have no-cost access to medical, pharmaceutical,
counseling and training assistance. Women may work lawfully while
under Phase 2 of the program. A case manager assists victims in
finding vocational training and AFP certified private
accommodation.
In 2004, Australia introduced a new witness protection
(trafficking) visa. This visa acknowledges the risks faced by
victims and witnesses who assist in the investigation of
trafficking offenders, and allows them to remain in Australia on a
temporary or permanent basis. The victim qualifies for this visa
by providing substantial assistance in the prosecution of a case,
regardless of whether a court case progresses. No victims or
witnesses have yet been granted a witness protection (trafficking)
visa, as none of Australia's trafficking cases have been concluded
in the courts.
Following a national public tender process, the Government awarded
the contract for providing case management victim support to a
private company, Southern Edge Training (SET). State and local
governments fund NGOs that provide women's hostels and sexual
health outreach services to prostitutes and refer workers to
immigration and counseling services. In addition, the
Government's aid agency, AusAID, continues to fund NGOs through
projects to assist victims in Southeast Asia, as noted above.
For many years, the DIMIA and the AFP have had a formal agreement
on the investigation and referral of suspected trafficking
victims. These arrangements were reviewed in 2003 and new
arrangements, whereby DIMIA agreed to immediately refer every
suspected trafficking victim to the AFP regardless of whether they
detected elements of sexual servitude offences, started in January
¶2004. The new arrangements directly addressed NGO allegations
that DIMIA had summarily deported trafficking victims.
Immigration officers referred significantly more persons to the
AFP under these new arrangements in 2004. Between 1999 and 2004
(inclusive), DIMIA referred 133 suspected trafficking victims to
the AFP. DIMIA referred 99 suspected victims to the AFP in the
2004 calendar year. After investigating the referred cases, the
AFP's TSET determined that 20 of the persons referred by DMIA were
indeed victims of trafficking in 2004.
All persons who are in breach of Australia's immigration laws
("unlawful non-citizens" or UNC) are subject to immediate
detention by immigration officers. DIMIA detains unlawful non-
citizens who are suspected of being trafficking victims until the
AFP can question them. After the AFP has determined that the
victim's case is genuine and the victim has agreed to cooperate
with legal action against the trafficker, the AFP advises DIMIA to
issue the victim a 30-day bridging visa. After the visa has been
issued, the victim is no longer detained. Under the terms of the
Government's trafficking victim protection program, the AFP must
contact SET within one hour of the AFP requesting that DIMIA issue
the victim a bridging visa, type "F", and the SET caseworker must
be with the victim within 2 hours of being contacted. DIMIA has
issued 29 Bridging Visas since they were introduced on January 1,
¶2004. Of the 29 bridging visas issued in 2004, 23 were issued to
Thai women.
Trafficking victims are neither fined nor prosecuted for
violations of migration laws.
While a trafficking victim can file a civil suit and take legal
action against traffickers (and can use public legal aid resources
to do so), there is no recorded instance of victims pursuing legal
redress against traffickers.
The Government has developed a comprehensive, personalized case
management program, which is drawn from a "victim-centered,
empowerment approach." Victims are provided with police-vetted
hotel accommodation and intensive care during the first stage of
the program, and later with police-vetted private accommodation
that they can personalize and make their home. A trafficking
victim's immediate family members who are onshore are incorporated
into all aspects of the program, including eligibility for visas.
The Government provides regular, specialized training for law
enforcement officials on the identification of trafficking victims
and the government's comprehensive victim support program.
In recent years, the NGO Project Respect has emerged as
Australia's most prominent campaigner against trafficking.
Project Respect undertakes advocacy work and public education
programs, and collaborates closely with partners in trafficking
"sending countries," particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. PR
also works closely and cooperatively with local city governments
to identify and report suspected trafficking victims to the
police. PR was consulted in the development of the GOA
Commonwealth Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons.
In Sydney and Melbourne there are other NGOs that have regular
contact with Asian prostitutes, who may include trafficking
victims. State departments of health also provide free hospital-
based sexual health clinics on a walk-in basis. The clinics offer
a range of sexual health services in foreign languages. Their
services are granted to everyone, without the need for the client
to show evidence of residency rights. There are also outreach
services that work in cooperation with these clinics. These
services generally have a state or local focus and often receive
state funding as part of the Government's public health program
aimed at reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted
infections. Such NGOs employ bilingual workers to visit brothels,
where they provide the workers with individualized education and
counseling or provide off-site training on a range of subjects,
including sexual health, immigration and taxation issues. These
services often have afforded NGO workers a freedom of entry into
brothels that enables them to monitor the employment conditions of
foreign sex workers. They also maintain good working
relationships with local government authorities and often work
closely with state government officials on the development of
occupational health and safety guidelines for brothels.
STANTON